In the face of unrelenting urban gentrification backed up by the systematic violence of militarized police forces, the further deterioration of already poor job prospects especially in manufacturing and government services, the gutting of the welfare state over decades of austerity, especially public education and health care, and the policy of mass incarceration, it is clear that the New Jim Crow is the overriding reality for a large section of the Black population. Against this background, a series of brutal police murders caught on video has catalyzed a dramatic new movement aiming to turn the situation around: Black Lives Matter.